Jessica Hausner: ‘I don’t show the exit, because there is none’

Interview by Dana Linssen

When reviewing the films of Jessica Hausner (born Vienna, 1972) in chronological order this summer, from her student film Flora (1995; the first film ‘she was satisfied with’) to her most recent feature CLUB ZERO (2023), two things struck me again. First of all, the use of the colour red – more on that later. But also, that, in retrospect, the title of her graduation film at the Film Academy in Vienna, INTER-VIEW (1999), contains a key or a hinge to her work. That is partly due to its remarkable spelling of course. At first glance, the title may refer to one of the topics and themes of her film, the short interviews with life questions that the male protagonist conducts throughout the film. But perhaps we should take it even more literally. INTER-VIEW is also an “in-between look”, a glimpse into an inter-zone, the interstitial realms between adolescence and adulthood, school and work, work and leisure, day and night, and manœuvring between the learned expectations that society imposes on (young) people (and they on themselves) and their dreams – even if they don’t quite know what those dreams are yet.

The episodic film consists of apparently loose observations; yet, nothing is superfluous. Dialogue is sparse, the motives of these passers-by in each others’ lives and that of the spectator even more scarce. We only get to know, or have the illusion of understanding them by watching them. And that makes them ideal mirrors for what happens to be going on in our own heads at that moment. Just like an unexpected, stealthy look in a real mirror, watching the film produces a sudden feeling of being caught.

Hausner’s films do not catch us with the intention of brutally exposing us. They are too multi-faceted, composed and thoughtful for that. They provoke with pinpricks. Her films can say both “yes” and “no” at the same time but mostly they say “if” or “but”; they ask, “Have you seen this?” or “Have you even thought about that?” Well, they don’t say it, they keep silent long enough for a viewer to hear their own inner voice, they wriggle open those in-between spaces where those uncertainties reside, because in this in-betweenness, human nature and human behaviour are mostly ambiguous, unmotivated, obscure, paradoxical, and sometimes downright incongruous.

Cinema is good with these in-between spaces. Not only through montage, but also through time, or rather duration. The longer a shot lasts, the more reality unravels, becomes unstable, volatile, evaporates. There are no certainties in Hausner’s films. Not because she upsets the sacred certainties of family (LOVELY RITA, 2001), religion (LOURDES, 2009), love (AMOUR FOU, 2014), and science (LITTLE JOE, 2019). No: she pulls away some carefully selected loose stones from those pillars of society, only causing them to waver perilously. That’s ominous and dangerous enough.

Because of their stylistic consistency (which is different from the fact that all her films look alike), they are all unmistakably Hausner films in retrospect too. For this she works closely with her team: cinematographer Martin Gschlacht (with whom she founded the production company coop99); production designer Katharina Wöppermann; and her sister, costume designer Tanja Hausner. Together, they create uncanny spaces of unease: rationalised architectures, recognisable and yet artificial at the same time. The more tightly these psycho-landscapes, these mental geographies, are put together, the more room there is for the camera in long takes and deep focus to watch without interfering. A terrifying terrarium of human behaviour.

In that tightly choreographed confusion of performed modes and mores, emphasised by graphic lines and patterns, the spotlight suddenly falls on the female protagonists: Rita, who murders her parents; the disabled Christine, who goes to Lourdes in search of a miracle as if it were a diversion; Henriette Vogel, who is challenged by poet Heinrich von Kleist in Amour fou to accompany him in his self-chosen death; single mother Alice, who grows a lucky plant she names after her little son, Joe; and nutrition guru Ms. Novak, who, in CLUB ZERO, encourages a group of students (and their ambitious parents) to live a life of perfect asceticism. All figures who have fallen through a crack in reality, have tried to escape, or have been carelessly pushed through the boundaries and laws of society, because they do not fit in well enough among the building blocks of society that obscures the view of those in-between areas.

Hausner does not free these women; she only creates the space to look at them curiously, in their rigidity, their implosion, their longing for disappearance and a danger that looms on the horizon of their vision. Fear, repression, and desire go hand in hand. But only if you, as a spectator, take responsibility for that observation yourself.

Flora’s red suitcase, Rita’s red shoes, Christine’s red cap and the nuns’ red vests in Lourdes, the red flower that is supposed to bring good luck but exudes danger: everywhere there are warning signs, traffic lights, little wounds from which those pinpricks start to bleed. Watching is not without commitment or responsibility.

With these thoughts in mind, I had a conversation with Jessica Hausner. Via Zoom. We routinely waited for the connection to be established, only to conclude that it was not good enough to use our cameras. So, it became a conversation in which we had to rely only on wording, voice, and intonation, to talk about movies full of absurd humour and subtle irony.

My Zoom avatar consists of a photo of Anna Karina peeking through an LP cover in JeanLuc Godard’s VIVRE SA VIE (1962). “Do you believe in freedom?” reads the subtitle. It seemed an excellent question. An interview about a filmmaker’s views is also not without obligation. An inter-vision on reality.

Dana Linssen

Let’s start with a walk through your work and look at how you became a filmmaker and how your career grew.

Beginnings are beginnings and yet, there are never fixed beginnings because our outlooks on life and work change as we develop and learn. You are a filmmaker and producer; I am a philosopher and a film critic; but I think we share a similar childhood history: you grew up in a family of artists, while I am the child of two stage actors. The more experience I have in my profession, the more I realise how much that kind of upbringing is itself an education and a formative element of one’s chosen profession. I wonder how growing up in a family of artists shaped you as a filmmaker? To what extent you relate to this experience – perhaps your upbringing prepared you for a career as a filmmaker?

Jessica Hausner Yes, that is in some way true, although you could also say my sister Tanja and I were pretty much left to our own resources, because our parents loved their work, and every minute they had was devoted to their art. When we saw them for dinner, all they talked about was art. In a way, this was very intense preparation for my becoming an artist, because the ability to be on your own and fill your own time with your own ideas is definitely part of my job now

I come from a classical family structure, my father being the patriarch and the main person in the room, my mother being his servant, and we children being sort of mute slaves. It was basically him talking about his art. When he had a bad day, he would talk about why things didn’t work out as he wanted, discuss very specific questions concerning his craft; on other evenings, he would speak more about art in general or about his colleagues, why he valued their work or hated it.

When I became a teenager, I remember appreciating the German artist Joseph Beuys very much. What I liked was that he said anything could be art, depending on the context, which I think is a very intelligent idea. My father hated that idea because his art came from craftmanship. He was a very skillful painter. And he detested the idea that anyone could be an artist without any form of technique. So, we had big fights about Joseph Beuys.

DL And your mother?

JH My mother was also a painter. She had been a student of my father; they met at the art academy. She never fully lived her life as an artist because we lived in this strict structure where everything revolved around my father. She worked a lot as his assistant, she helped with painting the foundations for his paintings, washed his brushes, and of course was there for us as children. The moment we left home, she started to devote more time to her own art.

DL When did film come into your life?

JH As a child, I wrote short stories and wanted to be a writer, but when I was sixteen, I had a boyfriend whose father worked in television and they had a video camera at home. This was not common at that time, in the 1980s. We borrowed the camera and made a little film out of one of my stories. I was the director and cinematographer, my friend acted, and I discovered something that was much more satisfying for me than writing. Making a film was creating reality, it was real action happening in front of me, in front of the camera.

DL Had you watched a lot of film or TV before? Did you have some sense of what cinema was?

JH Not at all. When I made that first film, I did not even know that in the editing you could combine different shots and camera positions. I just put the camera in front of the action and filmed it. And only when I started editing at home, using our video player, I realised that the transition from one scene to another must make sense, both visually and narratively. I didn’t know anything about shots and counter-shots, or starting a scene with an establishing shot. I discovered film by doing it. It was only after that that I started to watch films and television differently.

DL Can you remember the first film that made a real impression on you?

JH I remember seeing DERSU UZALA (1975) by Akira Kurosawa. It impressed me with its epic story. The end in particular was very touching.